LinkedIn sets up engineering center in India

Online professional network LinkedIn has set up a technology center in India that will focus on engineering and operating the company's products and systems.

The center will focus on engineering and operating LinkedIn's products and systems

By
John Ribeiro
| 15 Nov 2011

Online professional network LinkedIn has set up a technology center in India that will focus on engineering and operating the company's products and systems.

The new center in Bangalore already has 20 staff which will be increased to 30 by the end of the year, said Ganesh Krishnan, head of the technology center. The center will be part of the global product development and operations teams, he said.

The center may one day be as large as the company's other technology center, at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, which currently has about 300 staff, said Deep Nishar, senior vice president for products and user experience at LinkedIn. The company is growing at a very rapid pace, and has to add staff throughout the world, he said.

A decision has not been taken yet on which products the Indian center will focus on, as it has only been a few weeks since the staff were hired, and the planning for next year is still going on, the executives said.

A focus area for LinkedIn globally is its mobile offerings, Nishar said. LinkedIn already supports a variety of mobile platforms and is seeing a high rate of adoption of its products on mobile devices, he said.

The company has more than 12 million users in India, out of its total user base of over 135 million members, and sees India as its fastest growing market. As Internet penetration and mobile phone use in India picks up, the company expects growth in its member base in the country to be healthy, Nishar said.

The company set up its Indian headquarters in Mumbai in 2009, with sales offices located in Gurgaon near Delhi, and in Bangalore. It has over 50 employees at these operations.

Besides the Indian operations of multinational companies, LinkedIn has attracted a number of Indian companies looking to the network both for marketing their products and services and hiring staff, Nishar said. These include some of India's banks, outsourcing, and engineering companies.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is [email protected]